One Second
by Atheleia
Summary: It was just one second. But one second was enough to pull a trigger. One second was enough to end a life. One second was enough to ruin someone's entire existence. And one second was enough to break Sherlock completely. Post-Reichenbach story.


_One Second_

_Angst/Tragedy_

_Summary: It was just one second. But one second was enough to pull a trigger. One second was enough to end a life. One second was enough to ruin someone's entire existence. And one second was enough to break Sherlock completely. Spoilers for the Reichenbach Fall._

He had to die.

The cold truth hit him only as he was standing on the ledge.

He had to die.

Moriarty was right. The great Sherlock Holmes had finally been beaten. Trapped.

There was no way out.

Sherlock Holmes was not scared. Sherlock Holmes did not shake. Sherlock Holmes did not hesitate.

Did that mean he was no longer himself? Did that mean he had..._changed_?

Then again, Sherlock Holmes did not have friends. Sherlock Holmes did not care. Sherlock Holmes was an arrogant son of a bitch who only thought of his work.

Even as he thought those words, his brain denied it. Pictures of John, of Mrs. Hudson, of Lestrade floated in front of him.

He brushed them off.

Sherlock Holmes did not care. Sherlock Holmes did not—_could_ not—have friends.

He could almost see Moriarty smirking. The man was dead, but the man had won.

"_Play the game, Sherlock."_

He talked to John almost robotically through the phone. Against his will, a single tear rolled down his face and fell.

Sherlock Holmes _cared_. He could not let John...let Mrs. Hudson...let Lestrade...the only three people in the world that cared...die.

He had to jump.

Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes. This was his final goodbye. This was the solution to the final problem.

He tossed the phone to the ground, trembling as he did it. He would no longer need it.

He had to die.

And then, the gunshot sounded.

It was so unexpected that Sherlock almost fell. To this day he wished he had. If he had, perhaps he would've been spared. Would've been spared of the one thing he was afraid of. The one body in the world that he was genuinely scared of.

John Watson's eyes widened in shock and time slowed down. Flecks of blood spurted from his chest, dying his short blond hair an ugly dark red. The front of his shirt soaked in the red liquid, seeping through like a monster trying to consume its victim.

And then he fell. His arms were wide, eagle-spread, as if John had thrown his hands up in fury at something Sherlock had done again. But this time, gravity never finished its job. His hands would never come down to his side again.

Sherlock ran down the steps as if he'd never run before. The scene replayed in his head, over and over and over...

John. Dead.

It couldn't be true. The man had gone through the war in Afghanistan for God's sake! He couldn't just...

Couldn't just...

"_All people die. All lives come to an end."_

Sherlock pushed through the crowds, ignoring the doctors who tried to push him back. "John!" he screamed.

He screamed and screamed and screamed. He couldn't hear anything other than the blood in his ears and the gunshot, the damned gunshot...

He desperately reached for John's hand, desperately searched for a pulse. But there was none to be found. He stared into John's eyes, praying against hope that somehow, they would realize he was there, that somehow John would stand up and smile and ask how the great detective had fallen for such a simplistic trick.

But John did not stand up. John's eyes did not warm at the sight of Sherlock. They were dull. Hollow.

Empty.

Sherlock backed away. It wasn't John. It wasn't John.

It couldn't be John. John did not have eyes like that. John's eyes were full of life, of slight curiosity and paranoia, of mild caution but mutual understanding.

John could not be lying there. Whoever that was, it wasn't John. It could not be John.

It just couldn't.

Panicking, Sherlock ran. Ran up back St. Bart's. Ran back to the rooftop.

_Maybe...just maybe...if I go back there...this will disappear. It'll be a hallucination. I'll realize this was just a dream of mine. A worst case scenario. My brain, overthinking._

_Maybe...just maybe..._

Sherlock was back on the roof. He panted, hands on his knees. Moriarty's body still lay on the ground, mockingly still.

Shaking, Sherlock ignored the corpse. He stood onto the ledge once again and gazed down.

The flashing of an ambulance appeared. A crowd was gathered near the place John had been standing, but John was nowhere to be seen.

_This is wrong...no..._

Paramedics leaped out from the back of the ambulance. They rushed over with a stretcher and placed a body on it.

Even from the distance, Sherlock could recognize it.

John.

The stretcher was wheeled away and Sherlock simply stood there in shock. He swayed slightly and took a step back.

The ambulance sounded as it rushed away, the first sound he had heard since the gunshot. Inside, he imagined, paramedics were trying desperately to save John.

In his heart of hearts, he knew it was no use.

Numbly, Sherlock backed away from the ledge. Step by step, he backed away from what should've been his fate. Backed away from his cowardice, his foolishness, his idiocy, everything that had cost his friends their lives.

"_Three bullets."_

John. Mrs. Hudson. Lestrade.

They were all dead. Because of him.

Sherlock felt a fabric touch him and jumped back in shock. He had stumbled onto the dead body of Jim Moriarty.

Sherlock felt a shiver pass through him as he looked at the cold eyes of his ultimate rival. Seized by a fit of anger, he grabbed the corpse by his collar.

"This is all your fault!" Sherlock screamed. "Moriarty! Moriarty! Goddamn you, Moriarty! John! Mrs. Hudson! Lestrade! All of them!"

He shook Moriarty with such fierceness that he thought Moriarty's heart would've start beating again. But his rival was motionless. Emotionless. His rival made no sound, no movement.

His _dead_ rival.

"It's your damn fault, Moriarty!" Sherlock screamed, shaking Moriarty, watching his head move up and down, side to side. "Stop it! Stop it!" Moriarty's blood soaked into his own shirt, but Sherlock paid no attention.

Sherlock crumpled to the ground, dropping the corpse. "Stop it..." he whispered. "Please...someone...just stop it...stop it..."

Drops of rain began to fall, but Sherlock did not feel anything. "Someone please...just stop it...please..."

And Sherlock Holmes, the great Sherlock Holmes, began to cry.

And that was how they found him three hours later, kneeling on the ground, tears flooding down his face, completely broken inside.

He was not Sherlock Holmes. He was but a shell. An empty shell of what he had once been.

One second.

That had been all it took.


End file.
